Goal

The goal of this assign­ment is to use devel­oped skills to ana­lyze and pro­pose a solu­tion to a prac­ti­cal design need.

Objective

The objec­tive of this assign­ment is to research, brain­storm, and cre­ate a project pro­posal for an observed inef­fi­cient sys­tem used in an in house organization.

Background Reading

• Davis, Part One, Chap­ters 1–3
• O’Grady, Ch 2, Research Strate­gies and Tactics
• Course Mate­ri­als to date
• Exer­cise 02.02: Prac­tic­ing Data Dri­ven Design http://point918.com/exercise-02–02-practicing-data-driven-design/
• Exer­cise 03.04: Strat­egy and The­ory in Design http://point918.com/exercise-03–04-strategy-and-theory-in-design/

Assignment

Degree Plan Sheets (DPS) are used as a quick ref­er­ence used for help­ing uni­ver­sity stu­dents under­stand the path needed to grad­u­ate from a pro­gram. The “stan­dard” DPS has many vari­a­tions and needs. The goal of the assign­ment is to research and deter­mine the need for updat­ing this clas­sic tool, gen­er­at­ing pos­si­ble paths for solv­ing the prob­lem and report­ing the find­ings. Stu­dents will work in groups for the remain­der of the assign­ments related to this project.

Part One

Begin by ana­lyz­ing the his­tory, usage and con­stituency groups who cre­ate and use these tools. Con­duct a research based deter­mi­na­tion of fac­tors, bound­aries, lim­i­ta­tions and needs of the groups. Areas of inves­ti­ga­tion to address:

• Deter­mine Wants, Needs and Behav­ior Patterns
• Iden­tify Social and Cul­tural Differences
• Crit­i­cal Judg­ment About Per­sonal Design and Designs of Others
• Iden­tify addi­tional dis­ci­plines ben­e­fi­cial to project
• Divide the work­load into pos­si­ble areas of exploration.

Part Two

Gen­er­ate ideas and pos­si­ble plans for the project based on your find­ings in Part One. Areas of inves­ti­ga­tion to address:

• Appro­pri­ate Design Response
• Design at Dif­fer­ent Scales
• Crit­i­cal Eval­u­a­tions of Dif­fer­ent Technologies
• Social, Cul­tural, and Eco­nomic Impli­ca­tions of Technology

Com­bine all notes and mate­ri­als from Parts One and Two into a sin­gle PDF.

Part Three

Cre­ate a 500 to 1000 word pro­posal (often referred to as a design brief) that addresses the dis­cov­er­ies of Part One and Part Two. Clearly delin­eated the pri­mary ques­tion need­ing res­o­lu­tion here.

Cre­ate a short pre­sen­ta­tion with your find­ings from Parts One and Two, focus­ing on what was learned from the research. Sup­ple­ment the find­ings with any dia­grams, charts or dynamic media nec­es­sary to clar­ify and visu­al­ize dis­cov­er­ies or data. The pre­sen­ta­tion should be 2–3 min­utes in length and may have up to 5 slides. Pre­sen­ta­tion for­mat is impor­tant, but no lim­i­ta­tions on media, author­ing soft­ware or design. 

Areas of inves­ti­ga­tion to address:

• Con­duct and Frame Investigations
• Research Capa­bil­i­ties and Skills
• Ana­lyt­i­cal Tools

Assessment

• The fol­low­ing rubric posted on D2L will deter­mine assign­ment score: Assign­ment 01.06: Project Proposal

Techniques

Idea Gen­er­a­tion, The­ory, Tac­tics, Writ­ing, Presentation

Supplies

Art and Design Tech­nol­ogy require­ment, web browser